Jerusalem riots of 66

The Jerusalem riots of 66 occurred in 66 AD at the start of the First Jewish-Roman War. The Jewish population of Jerusalem rose up against the abusive Roman procurator Gessius Florus, who had 6,000 Jews massacred; the Jews responded by ousting him from the city and proclaiming Judean independence.

Riots
In 66 AD, a mob of pagan Greeks in the Judean city of Caesarea profaned the Jewish synagogue by sacrificing birds in front of the holy site, and the Roman garrison did not intervene. The animosity between Judaism and Hellenism grew as a result.

That same year, the Roman procurator Gessius Florus had his soldiers loot seventeen talents from the Second Temple to compensate for unpaid taxes. In response, some young Jews mockingly passed around a basket to collect money as if Florus was poor. Florus responded by massacring 6,000 Jews, and he whipped and crucified a number of the city's leaders, although they held Roman citizenship. When Florus moved to bring in reinforcements, the local population overwhelmed Florus' men, forcing them to retreat to the citadel. The Sicarii overwhelmed and massacred the 700-strong garrison of Masada to the south, and the Jews of Jerusalem proceeded to massacre the Roman soldiers who had withdrawn to the palace as they tried to surrender their weapons. The Jews slaughtered the garrison of the fortress of Cypros and secured the surrender of Machaerus, and the Jewish factions united. Greek mobs in Ascalon, Caesarea, and Tyre massacred Jews, so the Jews replied in kind by expelling many Greeks from Judea, Galilee, and the Golan Heights. Herod Agrippa II and his sister Berenice fled Jerusalem to Galilee, and the Judean militias cleansed the country of Roman symbols. Soon, Judea was in a state of full-scale revolt against the Romans.